Remember, remember...

I had every intention of making this post extremely timely and topical by actually posting it last Friday, but that has clearly not happened. I blame education.

Why Friday, you ask? Because Friday was Guy Fawkes day here in Ye Olde Britaine! For anyone who hasn't seen V for Vendetta, Guy Fawkes was a member of a conspiracy to blow up Parliament in like the 1600s; he was also a Catholic (right? I actually have no idea, you should Wikipedia this). I do know the poem!

Remember, remember,
The Fifth of November,
The gunpower, treason and plot
I know of no reason
Why the gunpower treason
Should ever be forgot

Actually, the poem keeps going for several lines after that, but if no one remembers that part of it, it's clearly unimportant. As an aside, I am going to make a swell historian.

So to celebrate the lack of the lack of a parliament building, people light bonfires and shoot off fireworks, I guess to remind themselves of how much fun it would have been back in 1605 if Guy Fawkes hadn't been so FREAKING OBVIOUS about things ("What powder kegs? I don't see any...these things I'm leaning against? They're...they're full of apples. Yeah. Apples."). I walked with some friends to see the fireworks and hopefully catch an effigy burning or two.

Here's the thing about Guy Fawkes night. It's in November. In Scotland. At night. This all equals being blasted with the cold and mighty firehose of an angry God. So there were no bonfires. And fireworks alone cannot warm one's frozen toes.

This is what the celebration might have looked like, if the poem ran, "Remember, remember the 5th of September" (PS, I stole all these photos from the internet, but Guy Fawkes was going to BLOW UP PARLIAMENT, so let's have some PERSPECTIVE here, people):

If it's wrong to love effigy burning, I don't want to be right.

Post-Fawkes, there was beer, and the drying of hair. Then I spent the rest of the weekend ensconced in my room, reading about the wilderness and British Jacobins. Word. I did leave to get doner kebab, which, if anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, a handheld electric meat shaver would be very nice.

Oh hells yeah.

Now it's back to the ole grindstone. Keep checking in; I promise, eventually something interesting will happen. It has to. It...it just has to.